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[Poison Dan]

First some background info:

My "main" music collection consists of one .APE file per CD (CD image) with APL files for each track. This is what I always listen to at home. I use MJ's convert format feature to create MP3s for my portable MP3 player, and MPCs to listen to at work (I will probably switch to OGG for this). Therefor, I use the convert format feature quite a bit.

With the latest builds, I'm having problems with tags that are removed from the destination file. I have uploaded two short songs to illustrate this:
http://users.skynet.be/bk343709/Track01.ape
http://users.skynet.be/bk343709/Track02.ape

(If you're curious, the songs are "Useful idiot" and "Message To Harry Manback" from the album "Ænima" from Tool)

If I convert them to MP3, tags are preserved.
If I convert them to OGG or MPC, the tags are removed. These were my resulting files:
http://users.skynet.be/bk343709/Track01.mp3
http://users.skynet.be/bk343709/Track02.mp3
http://users.skynet.be/bk343709/Track01.ogg
http://users.skynet.be/bk343709/Track02.ogg
http://users.skynet.be/bk343709/Track01.mpc
http://users.skynet.be/bk343709/Track02.mpc

I already had this behaviour for several MJ8 builds, but hadn't yet found the time to upload tracks and create a detailed post about it.

Somewhat related to this: Oggenc.exe has parameters for setting tags from the command line (e.g. --artist, --album, --title, etc.). Can I use these with the "External encoder" parameters field ? I know I can use the %IN and %OUT variables, but does MJ8 also has something like %ARTIST or %TITLE or something ?

UPDATE: I tried converting the APE files to OGG with Monkey's Audio (the GUI tool), and the result is exactly the same: the conversion is successful, but the tags are gone.

And now some more weirdness, that I discovered just before posting this, using build 327 (don't know if it's present in earlier builds):

I tried converting the resulting MP3 files to MPC and OGG (instead of going straight from APE->OGG or APE->MPC), but I got very strange results:
- Converting to OGG seemed to work fine, but the resulting files sounded like they were played at double speed (??).
- I couldn't convert the MP3s to MPC. The convert windows just froze at the "encoding" phase.
- Afther that, I couldn't play the MP3 files: I always got the message "Please select files to play". After I first played an APE file, I could play the MP3 files again.

Media Jukebox PLUS 8.0.327
Install Path: D:\Program Files\J River\Media Jukebox\

CPU: Intel Pentium III 839 MHz MMX
Memory: Total - 523 MB, Free - 377 MB
OS: Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1  (Build 2600)

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2600.0000
ComCtl32.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
Shell32.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
wnaspi32.dll: 4.71 (0001) , ASPI for Win32         DLL, Copyright © 1989-2002 Adaptec, Inc.
Aspi32.sys: 4.71 (0001)

Listening to: 'Paranoid Android' from 'OK Computer' by 'Radiohead' on Media Jukebox

[Poison Dan]

Well, I got some more information now.

The short story:

Converting Track01.ape to Ogg Vorbis:
- with MJ 8.0.320 and Ogg encoder plugin 2.0.40: tags are preserved
- with MJ 8.0.327 and Ogg encoder plugin 2.0.41: tags are removed

The long story:

I decided to give it a try on my work PC. This one still had build 320 (with Ogg encoder plugin 2.0.40) installed. I downloaded Track01.ape (see URL in my previous post), and converted it to Ogg Vorbis. Tags were still present in the target file, and all was well.

Then I upgraded the system to build 327 (with the Ogg encoder plugin 2.0.41). All was not well.

When I doubleclicked Track01.ape in the explorer to play it (MJ was open at that point), I got the message "please select files to play". I closed MJ, and doubleclicked Track01.ape again. This time MJ opened and play the file correctly.

I then proceeded to convert the file to Ogg again, and noticed another small bug: in the convert format dialog, the field "New Format" still showed "Ogg Vorbis VBR", and when I clicked "Change", it was set to Windows Media (note that "Ogg Vorbis VBR" is only valid for the previous version of the Ogg encoder, the new encoder doesn't have VBR in the name field).

Anyway, I started the conversion, and again the tags were gone from the target file.

I haven't tried MPC again, but maybe you could also try converting Track01.ape to MPC, and see if there is any difference in behaviour between build 320 and 327. Also, could you have a look at the problems I had converting the APE to MP3 and then from MP3 to OGG or MPC ?

System info for my work PC:

Media Jukebox PLUS 8.0.327
Install Path: E:\Program Files\J River\Media Jukebox\

CPU: Intel Pentium III 545 MHz MMX
Memory: Total - 129 MB, Free - 33 MB
OS: Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1  (Build 2600)

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2600.0000
ComCtl32.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
Shell32.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
wnaspi32.dll: 4.71 (0001) , ASPI for Win32         DLL, Copyright © 1989-2002 Adaptec, Inc.
Aspi32.sys: 4.71 (0001)

I would appreciate if you would look into this issue and provide a solution. Thank you in advance.

Oh, I and almost forgot the most important part of my post:

* BUMP *

[Poison Dan]

Another update:

I decided to try converting to MPC on my work PC. I got these results:
Track01.ape to MPC -> Tags removed
Track02.ape to MPC -> Tags preserved

And I converted both tracks to OGG again, and got different results this time:
Track01.ape to OGG -> Tags preserved (!!)
Track02.ape to OGG -> Tags removed

Strange things indeed. Feel free to download both APE files to try it out yourself.

[ZRocker]

I can confirm I'm seeing the same tagging issues (ie, removed sometimes) during Format conversions (like MJ just sometimes forgets or cannot add the tags to the output file).  Kind of sounds like maybe the file is still open when MJ attempts to update the tags and MJ fails (maybe it is still open by the encoder and MJ needs to wait a split second longer after the encoding finishes to attempt tag updating...just a guess, tho).

Also, I briefly (once) played with Ogg Vorbis encoding using Custom options.  My custom command-line looked like -q 3 -c "comment", but the output OGG file did not have my "comment" in the comment field.  I may have got the -c syntax wrong...I did not retest.

Update:
I just tried --comment="comment data" and --comment=comment_data on the Ogg Vorbis custom command-line too and the comment field was still not there (was blank...as viewed in MJ).

[Nikolay]

This problem will be fixed in next build.

Nikolay